Tutorial for bells and whistles?

[Randy Roberts]

It seems like each time I get on the forum there are more things staring at me that I don't know what they do and I'm getting more and more bewildered.
Is there somewhere for an old fart like me to go to figure out what all these bells and whistles do?

I'm talking about things like the big circles with mini paragraphs in them(that sometimes are stationary and sometimes are moving, some have stars in them some not) on the left of the listed threads(that sometimes have turned into lightbulbs with exclaimation points in them),
If all this is supposed to be intuitive, it sure isn’t for me.

Some pop up an explaination when the cursor pauses on them but there seems to be some that I'm just supposed to know what it means?

[Randy Roberts]

Oh look, mine got a star!

[Randy Roberts]

But I guess I don't get a piece of miniature legal paper with the upper right corner dogeared yet.

[Jim McConkey]

Those symbols tell you what kind of discussion it is, and whether anything is going on in it or not. We have a choice of two screen layouts right now (in the User Control Panel, Board Preferences). One displays a legend of the symbols on the main page, the other does not. We are looking into whether we can turn it on for that layout or not.

In the mean time, for the layout you are currently using, the red circles indicate topics with new activity. Within the topics, the discussions that have a star on them have new (unread) messages. A lock symbol means the discussion cannot be deleted, etc.

[Randy Roberts]

Thanks Jim,
I'm getting cranky I guess. I don't like to feel stupid and sometimes the new software holds up an unkind mirror to me. The old forum made me at least feel trainable. <g>

[Charlie Schultz]

There's a bunch of icons- I've added a list of them here: http://www.tngforum.mimf.com/phpbb/view ... 3201#p3201

[Jim McConkey]

If it is any consolation, this new forum software has had as much of a learning curve for staff as well as members. Simple things like renaming a discussion are now considerably more complicated. But some things are easier, and we are trying to invent ways around problems as we find them. Everyone please keep reporting what you find difficult or confusing and we'll do our best to address it.